Captives, Messengers, Pilgrims, Refugees, Wives: Classic Maya Written Accounts on Travel in the Upper Usumacinta

Summary

This presentation reviews references to travel in Classic Maya inscriptions at the archaeological sites of the Upper Usumacinta region. Although direct accounts of going to or coming from specific places are few, many texts and captioned images mention non-local individuals or describe events at other sites. The vast majority of such contexts involve warfare, but there are also references to visiting dignitaries, exiles, artisans, messengers, pilgrims, and, above all, brides from other royal families. The combined data from textual sources paints a picture of substantial mobility at least among the Classic Maya elites who produced and used hieroglyphic texts. In addition to revealing the political and historical fabric of the region, travel accounts shed light on the network of land and riverine routes in the Western Maya lowlands.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Circulation of People, Things & Ideas: Practices of Mobility in the Upper Usumacinta Basin

Keywords

Spatial Coverage